The Murderer Vine


Book Description

BECAUSE OLD TIMES THERE ARE NOT FORGOTTEN On their summer off from college, three boys went to Mississippi to work for civil rights. They were never seen again. So the father of one of the boys hired New York private eye Joe Dunne. His assignment: Find the men responsible, and don’t come home until they’re dead…




Dying on the Vine


Book Description

In Tuscany visiting friends with his wife, Gideon Oliver is asked to reexamine the bones of a couple whose deaths were ruled a murder-suicide. His findings do not agree with those of the Italian police.




Murder on the Vine


Book Description

Ex-NYPD homicide detective Nico Doyle investigates the murder of a local bartender in the Tuscan countryside. On a late October Sunday morning in Gravigna, local maresciallo Perillo is having breakfast with ex-NYPD detective Nico Doyle when he is called back to the station in Greve. Laura Benati, the young manager of Hotel Bella Vista, is worried—her bartender and good friend eighty-year-old Cesare Costanzi has been missing for three days. The next morning, Jimmy, co-owner of Bar All’Angolo, Gravigna’s local café, where Nico is a frequent patron, runs out of gas on his way back from Florence. When Nico meets him to help, Nico’s dog, OneWag, reacts to the smell coming from Jimmy’s trunk. Inside Nico finds a body wrapped in plastic: Cesare Costanzi, stabbed several times in the chest. Why would anyone kill Cesare, and how did he end up in Jimmy’s car? That’s for Nico to find out, as Perillo once again turns to Nico for help with the investigation.




Tangled Vines


Book Description

Noted California historian rips the oh-so-laid-back label off the California wine trade to show the violent and obsessive world underneath




SoHo Sins


Book Description

Portrait in BLOOD They were the New York art scene’s golden couple — until the day Amanda Oliver was found murdered in her SoHo loft, and her husband Philip confessed to shooting her. But was he a continent away when the trigger was pulled? Art dealer Jackson Wyeth sets out to learn the truth, and uncovers the dangerous secrets lurking beneath the surface of Manhattan’s posh galleries and decadent parties, a world of adultery and madness, of beautiful girls growing up too fast and men making fortunes and losing their minds. But even the worst the art world can imagine will seem tame when the final shattering sin is revealed...




The Strangler Vine


Book Description

In 1837 India, two young investigators get sucked into the mysterious Thuggee cult and its ominous suppression.




No Night is Too Long


Book Description

No Night is Too Long is a classic crime novel by bestselling, prize-winning author Barbara Vine Tim Cornish thought he'd gotten away with murder. For months after he'd killed his lover off the Alaskan coast, there hadn't been a word. But then the letters started to arrive. It seems that someone knows what Tim has done . . . This compelling thriller delivers such a dark picture of romantic love that murder seems its natural mate. Frightening, suspenseful, and deeply unsettling, No Night is Too Long is a modern crime masterpiece and will be enjoyed by readers of P.D. James and Ian Rankin. 'The Rendell/Vine partnership has for years been producing consistently better work than most Booker winners put together' Ian Rankin 'She deploys her peerless skills in blending the mundane, commonplace aspects of life with the murky impulses of desire and greed' Sunday Times Barbara Vine is the pen-name of Ruth Rendell. Ruth has published fourteen novels under the Vine name, two of which, Fatal Inversion and King Solomon's Carpet, won the prestigious Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award. Also available in Penguin by Barbara Vine: The Minotaur, The Blood Doctor, Grasshopper, The Chimney Sweeper's Boy, The Brimstone Wedding, No Night is Too Long, Asta's Book, King Solomon's Carpet, Gallowglass, The House of Stairs, A Dark-Adapted Eye.




The House of Stairs


Book Description

The House of Stairs - an unputdownable crime classic from bestselling author Barbara Vine Lizzie hasn't seen her old friend, Bell, for some fourteen years, but when she spots her from a taxi in a London street she jumps out and pursues her despite 'all the terrible things' that passed between them. As Lizzie reveals those events, little by little, the women rekindle their friendship, with terrifying results ... 'This is the third psychological thriller by Ruth Rendell writing as Barbara Vine and when I say it surpasses the first two that's really saying something ... Vine has not only produced a quietly smouldering suspense novel but also presents an accurately atmospheric portrayal of London in the heady 60's. Literally unputdownable' Time Out The House of Stairs is a modern masterpiece of the crime genre and will leave you gripped from the first page to the last. If you enjoy the novels of P.D. James, Ian Rankin and Scott Turow, you will love this book. 'The Rendell/ Vine partnership has for years been producing consistently better work than most Booker winners put together' Ian Rankin 'A superb and original writer' Amanda Craig, Express Barbara Vine is the pen-name of Ruth Rendell. She has written fifteen novels using this pseudonym, including A Fatal Inversion and King Solomon's Carpet which both won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award. Her other books include: A Dark Adapted Eye; The House of Stairs; Gallowglass; Asta's Book; No Night Is Too Long; In the Time of His Prosperity; The Brimstone Wedding; The Chimney Sweeper's Boy; Grasshopper; The Blood Doctor; The Minotaur; The Birthday Present and The Child's Child.




The Minotaur


Book Description

The Minotaur - a thrilling novel from the bestselling queen of crime Barbara Vine Kerstin Kvist enters crumbling Lydstep Old Hall to live with the Cosways and to act as nurse to John: a grown man fed drugs by his family to control his lunatic episodes. But John's strangeness is grotesquely mirrored in that of his four sisters who roam the dark, mazy Essex country house under the strict gaze of eighty-year-old Mrs Cosway. Despite being treated as an outsider, Kerstin is nevertheless determined to help John. But she soon discovers that there are others in the family who are equally as determined that John remain isolated, for sinister reasons of their own ... 'The reader is kept in suspense throughout . . . vintage wine from the Rendell vine' Independent 'The Cosway family is a mesmerizing creation... I rushed through the last pages' Penelope Lively, Sunday Times 'Stealthy, credible, ingenious and addictive' Literary Review 'The Rendell/ Vine partnership has for years been producing consistently better work than most Booker winners put together' Ian Rankin The Minotaur is a modern masterpiece of the crime genre and will leave you gripped from the first page to the last. If you enjoy the novels of P.D. James, Ian Rankin and Scott Turow, you will love this book. Barbara Vine is the pen-name of Ruth Rendell. She has written fifteen novels using this pseudonym, including A Fatal Inversion and King Solomon's Carpet which both won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award. Her other books include: A Dark Adapted Eye; The House of Stairs; Gallowglass; Asta's Book; No Night Is Too Long; In the Time of His Prosperity; The Brimstone Wedding; The Chimney Sweeper's Boy; Grasshopper; The Blood Doctor; The Minotaur; The Birthday Present and The Child's Child.




Blood on Vines


Book Description

Four friends, a shared past, a common enemy. In New Zealand's Martinborough, an ex-wine maker is murdered. The precise planning and execution by the unknown assailant begin a series of vile attacks. Meanwhile north of Auckland, the long, hot summer is over and the tourists have left the Matakana wine country. A tranquil atmosphere descends and warm autumnal winds sweep across the grape-laden valleys. With the harvest due, grapes sit bursting upon the manicured vines awaiting the pick. Within this vista of peace, a rampage of death is about to rock the local community to its core. Will it be their shared history that sees the four friends being picked off one-by-one?